LO4: Evaluation

I was asked by SPH publishing to  to create for pages for a magazine to cater for a Sheffield audience.

My magazine is a local magazine based in Sheffield is about the alternate rock bands around Sheffield. The genre is music as there are lots of bands around Sheffield that I could have contacted, the type of music is alternate rock as that is the type of music that I like and I will enjoy writing about more which will make the writing more energetic and enjoyable to read. Alternate rock was also a good genre to do a magazine on as in Sheffield there isn't any magazines based on only this genre meaning there is a gap in the market which I have taken.  This stands out amongst other magazines as it is based around Sheffield bands and this is different to other magazines in Sheffield as this is only about music unlike Toast or exposed as they focus on things other then music. I did an informative magazine of small bands around Sheffield as the bands wanted to get noticed and magazine coverage promoted them and the audience wants to discover more bands and music to listen to so they can read the magazine to do that. The mode of address is teacher to pupil which fits the purpose of the magazine, which is to educate the reader on smaller bands around Sheffield. Because my magazine is about alternate rock it is called Amp to link to the genre of music.

On my front cover it has a font similar which is sans serif so it stands out a lot more and is very strong and powerful similar to the genre of music it also will be easier to read for the audience, it is blue so it also stands out with high energy. The main cover line links to the main cover image, which says Lewis Bay then underneath it, it says "the next big thing". Because it's a question it gets the reader engaged so they want to know the answer so they read on.
I used the text tool to write the main cover line:

I then used the fill tool to make the letters white so it was easier to read:

 The house style is black, blue and yellow. Black is a powerful colour similar to the genre of music also it can also be seen as quite rebellious and dark which a lot of alternate music is, a lot of alternate / rock fans like and wear the colour black. The colour blue links to the target audience which is males as blue is seen as a stereotypically masculine colour it also is high energy like the rock genre. The colour yellow is a high energy colour linking to fire, the rock genre is seen as high energy. My main cover image is of Lewis Bay in a pose which makes him look powerful and important as this is how he will be seen by the audience, the main cover line "the next big thing" reinforces this connotation.
The image is also edited to look dark as this has connotations of darkness and even danger which works well for the rock genre.
To do this I used layer filters. I used, the high pass filter and the gaussian blur filter:

He is rock band member also since I am targeting fans of rock bands so he will appeal to them. The image is a slightly low angle as it connotes that he is powerful and important. It is a portrait long shot so it fits the magazine and you can see his whole body. There is a competition for gig tickets as this won't be too expensive and it is affordable and it appeal to the target audience as they like music and live near wherever the gig is as it is based in Sheffield. This is be represented by a spikey star graphic to stand out and show importance as it is be a big selling point for the magazine and advertises it to the audience.
I created this graphic by creating two custom shape graphics and I made one black and one white and I put the black one in the white one.

I then used the rubber tool to sharpen the edges:

I also have two other graphics on this page, one is a circle and a rectangle curving around it, I did this by firstly drawing a circle using the circle tool:

Then I drew a rectangle using the rectangle tool across it:

I then used the warp tool to bend the rectangle to make it look like it's bending around the circle:

I then adjusted this so it bent around the circle correctly.

Then I added text and used warp to bend that with the shapes:

I used Lewis Bay instead of the lead singer of Baily Street Rosie because they did not respond to my messages and Lewis was available.


Contents Page
The double page spreads is advertised in the contents page to try and get the reader to read them as they is the biggest articles in the magazine. There is text advertising different pages in the contents as this is the purpose of the contents page, so I ordered it in a nice way that the reader can easily see, I used text instead of photos as I never got enough photos to fill the contents page.

I used the rectangle tool in InDesign to neatly order all the contents into sections and the text tool to write down the pages:

I used these tools to create an entire list:

The contents page keeps the colours from the front cover to create a brand and keep the same connotations. One page it  advertises is a gigs which will have taken place in Sheffield as this is what the audience will want to read as they will live in Sheffield this was going to include pictures from the waterparks live tour at the O2 academy on the 20/04/2017 but I could not get tickets. Another part of my magazine that will advertise in my contents page is a quiz about 2000's bands in Sheffield as it suits the Sheffield audience and their love for the bands this was going to have pictures of Lewis Bay but he ended up being used for my front cover. The contents page advertises the competition again for the gig tickets as there would be a page in the magazine talking about it and this is be a big reason why the reader bought the magazine This was going to have picture of the tickets but I never managed to get photos. I also included a editors section and added a photo of me, I did this by placing down a rectangle frame tool:

I then used the place tool in the drop down menu:

I then selected a picture of me and added it:

I added a picture of myself and then edited this picture so it fit this space so it doesn't take up too much space but it's big enough for the reader to easily see. I put this in the editors section as it gives a more personal feel to this magazine and gives a better link between the reader and the editor which is me.

1st double page spread
The first double page spread was going to be an interview with Bailey street but like I said before they never responded. Instead I got Lewis Bay to do an interview as it's likely the audience wants to know more about him, it also suits the purpose of my magazine which is to inform the reader on new bands or singers in Sheffield. I asked questions like "what has been your biggest inspiration when making music" and "what have you been up to regarding music  this will get qualitative data to make the article interesting for the audience instead of just getting yes or no answers, it will also make a longer article.
I made the body copy more readable using black rectangles behind the body copy. I did this by drawing black rectangles behind the body copy then editing these rectangles to fit the body copy:

I think this made it so you can read it a lot easier than before making the reader enjoy reading it more.
The photo was of Lewis Bay wearing a leather jacket and lots of black as this is a stereotypical rock look and he is in a pose which makes him look cool so he is an ideal self for the audience. This has a slightly low angle shot to show importance of him and how the audience should look up to him. The location of the image ended up being in B&M car park as, it's slightly run down and it shows the urban style of alternate rock and how this genre is rebellious as it's a location that you wouldn't normally be hanging around in and shouldn't really be. This location links to the target age of 17 to 21 as these sort of ages are likely to hang out in places like this. The image is in the background of the page and the body copy is to the side of the photo I made sure it isn't in the way of the photo. The headline gives a tiny overview of Lewis and what his music is like, it says his name then "creating the old style rock and roll in a new way this is to entice the reader into the magazine, which is sans serif to stand out, so they read the rest of it. There is another headline which is highlighted with yellow to help it stand out it also gives an energetic feel, this talks about Lewis even more giving the reader a good introduction into the article as they know enough about Lewis to read the article. This DPS sticks to the colour scheme of the front cover blue, black and yellow to create a brand so those colours make the audience think of this magazine.

My colour scheme changed from yellow and blue, black and white to red black and white as I believed that this colour scheme would look better in my pages but when I was creating my pages I realised that this was not the case as I do not believe that this looked well and it did not fit the connotations that I wanted it to so I changed it back to yellow, blue, white and black as not only did this look better it had connotations of high energy and blue was a masculine colour linking to my target audience as well.

LO4: Final product

Front page:

Contents page:

DPS:

LO4: Exporting final magazine pages

When taking my photos I took them as JPGs as I wanted my photos as a lossless high quality file because I am going to be printing it so it must be high quality for printing. JPGs are also very compatable with most photo editors such as Adobe photoshop which is what I edited my photos in. JPGs also can be edited easily without loosing quality.

I used Adobe Photoshop and Adobe Indesign as I can edit lossless high quality files, they both are used in the industry by professionals so they are suitable software as it is part of the industry standard. They both allow is to create pages and edit layers so this allows us to edit each part of the pages individually.

For my front page I saved the page as a TIFF file as this is a high quality lossless file which is is used in the industry for print, an example of a magazine that uses this file type is Kerrang.

For my contents and double page spread I exported it as a PDF because this is also a lossless high quality file type used for printing, this would be the file that we send to the printer so we must save it in this format.

In my proposal I stated that

"I can distribute this in local pubs and cafes to target the local Sheffield also in bars people are likely to be listening to music in these places. Other places I can distribute this magazine is music shops around Sheffield such as Music Junkie near the Moor or The Music Box in the Moor as these are both independent music stores that are likely to accept this magazine. Music shops would be amazing places to put a music magazine as it will be the perfect audience because they will obviously like music if they are in a music store so they will be more interested in the magazine." so it is important that I use a high quality lossless files as I plan to distribute my files in print form meaning that the quality must be high because print requires a very high quality for it to look good when it is printed. It is important for my magazine to have high quality because if the product was low quality the consumer would not be happy with it.

LO4: Review of assets

The was the photo I decided to use for my front cover, the strengths of this front cover is that it is well lit which makes it look high quality which is important as this will be on the front cover making the magazine look like it's high quality. Its also very dark which works with the genre and overall style that i'm looking for in this magazine. the negatives is that the background is quite odd and doesn't really have a purpose.

This is the picture as you can clearly see the guitar so the genre is obvious. I also like the face lewis is pulling as he is slightly smirking and this is kinda mischievous which a rock star usually is. What is negative about this is the photo is not straight and looks slightly tilted and Lewis is not in the centre.

This is the double page spread picture its strengths are that Lewis pose in it follows the conventions of rock as this is a common pose amongst other pictures of rock stars also there is lots of space for the body copy to go on this picture. A weakness is that Lewis looks a little washed out from the flash.

This is the final masthead, its strengths are that it really suits the rock genre as it's all rough like the genre is. It is big and loud, this is another strength as this fits the genre of music and it's also a lot more memorable so it creates a brand. I think a weakness could be that it's slightly hard to read as the hole in the A is covered up also It doesn't really suit my colour scheme.

Thus is a graphic from my front page advertising a competition for gig tickets, I think a strength is that the star graphic represents importance and speciality which I think is a good representation of these tickets as they will be important to the reader as a it may be a big reason that the reader bought the magazine. I think a weakness could be that the spikes black and white graphic doesn't really fit with the yellow and blue banners and text.

This is another cover line from my front page, A strength is that it follows the conventions of a magazine as this set up with the text and banners behind it is commonly used within rock magazines because it makes the text stand out and makes it easy to read. A weakness is that the text isn't perfectly balanced as in some of the text isn't in the centre of the rectangles.

This is the final cover line on my front page, I think this is a good graphic as this really stands out and fit's the text in it well. I think a problem with it is that the warped rectangle was meant to look like it meant to look like it bent around the circle but I just don't think it has this effects.

I used this font for my contents, I think it is really good as it suits the genre as it's kind of damaged and it's not clean and slick which works with the rock genre as in the rock genre doesn't care about looking all polished and well made it's more rough and dirty because it's rebellious and doesn't care about how others see it, so this will suit the a alternate rock fan. I think a negative to do with this font is it looks kind of like a paint brush has done it which could connote of being childish which I really don't want.

This is for my contents page, I think one strength is it's similar to other contents pages so the reader should know how to use it, the pages are neatly organised into sections with the page numbers in a different colour to make it even easier to use. A weakness I can see is that the writing does not all line up like it should making it look less neat.

This is my body copy for my double page spread, I think its strengths are that the writing is easier to read because of the black background it amplifies the white of the writing. It's also clear where the question is and the answer so reading the article is even more enjoyable because of this. I think what is wrong with the body copy is the writing is too close to the edge of the black border it kind of isn't nicely arranged.

This is the page number from my double page spread I think this is is good because it follows the conventions of a magazine by having the number then the masthead of the magazine. A negative is that the white outline slightly goes on the side it shouldn't be on.

LO4: Client and focus group feedback

Feedback: 

The survey - https://www.surveymonkey.co.uk/r/PRXMC2S
From the responses it is clear that my masthead does not fit in with my magazine because of the colour it is. For the front page the coverline is grabbing which is good, the photograph is also good on this page. Although it could do with more coverlines. For the contents the colour and the layout is a strength that it has however both images could be better. For my double page spread the photo is good and the colours are constant but the text is hard to read and the font used is slightly childish. 

I got feedback from the client:

From this feedback it's clear that my front cover is good because of the masthead and photo but the colours are not the same as my contents and DPS so it doesn't create a brand like it should and it really needs to for the first issue. Also my grammar and spelling in my body copy is very bad and needs to be fixed.